


Bravado

by conceptstage



Series: Single Chapter Critical Role [125]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Past Child Abuse, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptstage/pseuds/conceptstage
Summary: Prompted on Tumblr"Was that supposed to hurt?"
Series: Single Chapter Critical Role [125]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1436668
Comments: 2
Kudos: 91





	Bravado

Beau has bravado instead of feelings. 

Feelings are hard, feelings are messy. Bravado is easy because it’s just pretend. Bravado is easy because it's a lie and Beau lies the way other people breathe; effortlessly, naturally, instinctually. 

She’s hissed bravado through blood stained teeth and busted lips and through broken bones and lacerations. She’s spat ‘Fuck you’ to men with their hands around her throat, cursing them with what could possibly be her final breath.

Bravado is easier than dealing with the fact that she is probably going to die.

She caught one fist easily but the second came around the other side and hit her so hard in the temple that her vision went black and she crashed to the ground. When her right eye cleared, a cobalt monk was standing over her, looking at her with a stoic frown and concern in her eyes.

“Beau?” her teacher asked. Her voice was even and devoid of emotion. “Are you alright to keep going?”

Beau scoffed and flipped back, heel over head, to get on her feet and then stepped back into a defensive stance. Her left eye was taking longer to clear but she smirked anyway. “What? Was that supposed to hurt?”

Bravado is easier than being cared for.

Bravado is easier than caring.

Beau has laughed in the face of words meant to destroy her. She’s smirked at people trying their damndest to make her cry. It was something that she had perfected as a child, pretending that the things her father said to her didn’t hurt.

The slap didn’t hurt. Her father wasn’t a strong man and she’d been smacked harder by women she’d asked to do it, so that wasn’t what really hurt. And words… Words shouldn't hurt this bad.

“Beauregard,” he says the name like it’s a curse. He says her name the same way she says ’Fuck you’. “I had such high hopes for you when you were born. But you will never amount to anything despite my best efforts.”

And Beau laughed, smirking up at him through blood and bruises with a strong dwarven monk holding her arms tightly behind her. “Oh, Father,” she hissed through a grin. “Was that supposed to hurt?”

Bravado is easier than admitting it wasn’t her fault. 

Bravado is easier than wondering about what her life could have been if she had a different start.

She has relied on Bravado for so long that she’s not sure what to do when it doesn’t work anymore. How do normal people, people who haven’t been fucked up beyond belief, react to being trusted? To being relied on? To being, dare she say it, loved?

It takes a shorter amount of time than she’s willing to admit to stop flinching when they reach for her. To stop hiding her insecurities with smirks and curses.

“No offense,” Fjord said to her one afternoon in his lazy drawl. “But when you try to compliment people it really makes you sound like an asshole.”

“It- What?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if it’s your smile or your words or what but it always comes off wrong.”

Beau felt a tightening in her chest. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. In fact, she could probably guess how this entire conversation would play out. Fjord would tell her she was weird or scary or annoying. Maybe he was trying to get a rise out of her, maybe he was trying to get her to keep her distance, she didn’t know. But in the end, it didn’t matter why. She smirked. “Was that supposed to hurt?”

Fjord blinked at her. “It- No! No, I didn’t mean… Did it?”

Whatever snark she had been about to say got lodged in her throat and she just blinked at him until she could swallow it. “I- No. That’s- Wha- What were you saying then?”

“I mean, _ I _ know that you’re trying to be nice, right? It just comes off kind of aggressive. I was gonna try to work on it with you. What did you think I meant?”

“Nothing. It- What did you have in mind?”

And Beau has walls. She built them meticulously for her entire life. Each brick is made of her father’s resentment, her mother’s disinterest, her peers’ scorn. It shouldn’t be so easy to break. But it doesn’t even take long. Even all the bravado in the world can’t stop the Mighty Nein.


End file.
